Grandpa Gallops Out His Dream

Jockey Begins His Racing Career Better Late Than Never

April 24, 1988|By Gary West, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.

HOT SPRINGS, ARK. — He was a grandfather before he was a jockey. But first of all, he was a dreamer.

At 18, Bobby Johnson ran away from home. And he ran toward a dream-his dream of being a jockey. When it couldn`t be realized immediately, Johnson just held onto it, nourishing it for almost 27 years before willing it to be true.

Johnson could be the envy of every man because he has lived his dream. He patiently but relentlessly followed it without compromise or social irresponsibility until he caught it.

He`s 108 pounds of inspiration.

``It doesn`t matter if he`s a big-time jockey or not,`` Johnson`s oldest daughter, Kelly Franklin, says about her father, who is riding at Oaklawn this season. ``He`s successful because he`s accomplishing a dream.``

It began in 1960, when Johnson departed Mansfield, Ark. He left home and hitched a ride to Hot Springs. At the Oaklawn Park racetrack, he hoped to begin his career as a jockey. But one morning, the career lay as crumpled as the young rider, all in a heap, after a spill.

The dream didn`t break. The dream that brought Bobby Johnson to the racetrack years ago brought him again to Oaklawn Park. The boy`s attempt failed, but not the man`s. His daughters grown, finances secure and business career satisfied, Johnson finally has become a jockey.

``My family was a hard-working farm family,`` Johnson says, trying to explain the long curving course that led him to horse racing, ``and we always had workhorses around the farm, not thoroughbreds or racehorses, just ordinary horses. And I learned to ride, and I loved the horses. I was very small, and by the time I was 13, people were saying I should be a jock.``

But his parents didn`t think too highly of his dream. It didn`t have a place in a strict Baptist household. His mother opposed it staunchly.

Marcell Johnson never had been to a racetrack or seen a horse race, but she had heard enough of such places and such affairs to conclude that horse racing wasn`t for her, nor for any son of hers.

``My parents were very religious and just didn`t understand,`` Johnson says.

``Kinda deep down, my dad thought it might be all right. But my mother didn`t have any idea. She didn`t think the racetrack was any place for people to go or for a boy to grow up.``

Johnson`s mother, now in her 80s, still lives in Mansfield and still has not attended a racetrack. But her position on horse racing has softened somewhat in the last 30 years.

``Most of all, I was afraid of him getting hurt,`` she says.

But she admits she checks the race results to follow her son`s riding career. And she`s still worried about injuries, especially when she remembers what happened in 1960.

Johnson was galloping a young horse through its educational paces when it flipped backward and fell on him. ``I got banged up so bad I was laid up for eight months,`` he says.

Back in Mansfield, Mom and Dad took care of him, of course, but he ``had to hear a lot of I told you sos.``

When he recovered, he found work with the Cable Television Company of Ft. Smith, Ark.

``Every day I`d go to work, it was a struggle,`` he says. ``I wanted to be back at the track. All I could think about was riding horses.``

But for the moment, riding horses offered little, save the promise of family dissent, while cable television had promise.

For six years, he went to night school to get a degree in electrical technology, and gradually, he rose through the ranks of his company. What little spare time he had he devoted to his hobby.

``Some guys might like to go golfing or fishing on weekends,`` he says,

``but I`d go ride horses. A friend would call to say he was running a horse in some match race somewhere and could I ride him, and I`d always end up riding all the races because I was so small.``

He suffered the usual assortment of injuries that go along with being a jockey. For example, he broke the same ankle four times, but somehow he maintained his dream of riding, at least on weekends.

By 1970, he knew enough about cable television systems to build one. The people of Mansfield didn`t have cable television and wanted it, so the city council asked Johnson to build the system and gave him the franchise.

``I started off by borrowing $4,000 from the bank,`` Johnson recalls.

``And then when I had 50 subscribers, I went to the bank and said, `If you let me have $4,000 more, I`ll get 50 more subscribers,` and it just grew. When I finished work in Ft. Smith, I`d go to Mansfield and lay cable at night.``

The system grew to nearly 500 subscribers.

In similar fashion, he built a cable system in Huntington, Ark., and, with a friend, another for Lavaca.

In 1984 he sold the Huntington and Mansfield stations. He still owns the Lavaca company, and operates it with the assistance of Franklin, his 24-year- old daughter.

Two years after the sale, the Ft. Smith cable company changed hands, and the new owner laid off all upper management, including Johnson.